Graphics editing applications as executed by a computing device include a variety of tools, with which, a creative user may interact via a user interface to create digital content, such as digital images, vector graphics, and so forth. An example of this is a snapping module, which is configured to aide positioning of objects within an item of digital content in relation to each other. This may include snapping behaviors in which an item of digital content is “snapped” to particular locations by the graphics editing application, output of visual guides to align objects in relation to each other, spacing of objects in relation to each other, and so on.
Conventional graphics editing applications define the relationships between these objects based on an outer border of the objects or a center point of the objects. This may be used by the graphics editing applications, for instance, to align tops of the objects to each other, space objects based on a center point of the objects, and so on. While this may look visually pleasing for objects having a relatively uniform color, these techniques often fail for objects having a diffused color in which a source of the diffused color does not correspond to the outer border or center point.
In one such example, mesh art is formed from a collection of vertices. A source of diffused color may be defined using one of these vertices, which is then diffused through the mesh to form a gradient. If the source is offset from a center or border of the mesh, however, alignment based on the center or border of the mesh art may look disjointed. Accordingly, conventional techniques used by graphics editing applications to aide placement, when confronted with mesh art having diffused color, often fail thus forcing creative user to make a “best guess” as how to manually align objects. This problem is further exacerbated by difficulties of a creative user in manually determining an actual source of the diffused color in the mesh art in an accurate manner.